"(""Parachute"" means ""shield from fall"".) The word ""umbrella"" evolved from the Latin ""umbella"" (an umbel is a flat-topped rounded flower) or ""umbra"", meaning shaded or shadow. In Britain, umbrellas were sometimes referred to as ""gamps"" after the character Mrs. Gamp in the Charles Dickens novel ""Martin Chuzzlewit"", although this usage is now obscure. Mrs. Gamp's character was well known for carrying an umbrella. ""Brolly"" is a slang word for umbrella, used often in Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Kenya. ""Bumbershoot"" is a fanciful Americanism from the late 19th century. In all written records, the oldest reference to"
"""scrooge"", for example, is a miser – or someone who dislikes Christmas festivity. His characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. ""Gamp"" became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character Mrs Gamp, and ""Pickwickian"", ""Pecksniffian"", and ""Gradgrind"" all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were, respectively, quixotic, hypocritical, and vapidly factual. Many were drawn from real life: Mrs Nickleby is based on his mother, though she didn't recognise herself in the portrait, just as Mr Micawber is constructed from aspects of his father's"
"a grotesque caricature of a Victorian gentleman: a rotund figure in cape and top hat (hiding his horns), with a perpetual enormous grin and ""pince-nez"" spectacles. Although his attitude is often cheerful, he is quick to reveal his more intimidating, malicious side. The Earl has a golem named , a pink umbrella with a small, talking jack-o-lantern at its tip. It usually talks excitedly or screams, adding its name to the end of almost every sentence. Lero, used by the Earl as a Mary Poppins-type flying umbrella, is very loyal to him and guards his sword. Road often takes Lero"
"a metaphor used throughout the books. Other differences include the earth-moving machine JCB called ""Jekub"" in the UK version but ""CAT"" in some US editions, John Deere (called Big John) in others. All three names refer to common generic trademarks for heavy equipment in their respective countries. Masklin, a 4-inch high Nome, lives in a grass verge by a motorway service station with his friend Grimma and the remaining elders of their once-large tribe, which has been dwindling due to food shortage and predation by foxes, while several Nomes have headed across the motorway. The other younger members of the"
"his ""brothel"" (as opposed to ""brother""). Great Aunt Joyce and Uncle Dick - Unseen characters, they are often mentioned by Victor and Margaret, as an aging and grim couple and Victor and Margaret dread having anything to do with them. Great Aunt Joyce is mentioned as having a glass eye and has the habit of knitting bizarre items (such as six-fingered gloves) for Victor. Uncle Dick has a wooden arm; in the final Comic Relief (2001) episode, it transpires that a nurse had mistakenly placed a drip in the false arm for 18 hours after a trip to hospital after"
"unforgettable bit of biting nonsense"". The Great Automatic Grammatizator The Great Automatic Grammatizator (published in the U.S. as The Umbrella Man and Other Stories) is a collection of thirteen short stories written by British author Roald Dahl. The stories were selected for teenagers from Dahl's adult works. All the stories included were published elsewhere originally; their sources are noted below. The stories, with the exception of the war story ""Katina"", possess a deadpan, ironic, bizarre, or even macabre sense of humor. They generally end with unexpected plot twists. Groff Conklin in 1954 called the short story ""The Great Automatic Grammatizator"""
"Umbrella (children's book) Umbrella by Taro Yashima is a children's picture book that was named the 1959 Caldecott Honor Book. It was originally published in 1958 then later reprinted in August 1977 by Puffin Books. ""Umbrella"" is a short story where a little girl is the principal character. Her name is Momo, which means ""peach"" in Japanese, and she was born in New York. Momo carries the blue umbrella and wears the rubber boots that she was given on her third birthday. She asks her mother every day to use her umbrella. Momo tried to tell her mother she needed"
"300 years old and 35 feet 3 inches tall; another serpent named Common Dragon (named after Carmen Dragon, a famous conductor); Beany's uncle, Captain Horatio K. (for Kermit) Huff'n'puff (whose name is a play on Horatio Hornblower), who would blow on the sails of the ship Leakin' Lena (see below) to make it go faster, familiarly called Uncle Captain; Dishonest John, a/k/a ""D.J."" whose cape and handlebar mustache identified him obviously as a villain; another sometimes villain named Dudley Nightshade (named after Deadly Nightshade, a poisonous member of the Solanaceae family); Tear-a-long the Dotted Lion (who always had a fast"
"Sarah Gamp Sarah or Sairey Gamp is a nurse in the novel ""Martin Chuzzlewit"" by Charles Dickens, first published as a serial in 1843–1844. Mrs. Gamp, as she is usually referred to, is dissolute, sloppy and generally drunk. She became a notorious stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era, before the reforms of campaigners like Florence Nightingale. The caricature was popular with the British public. A type of umbrella became known as a ""gamp"" because Mrs. Gamp always carries one, which she displays with ""particular ostentation"". The character was based upon a real nurse described to"
"umbrella contains a map of secret passages which they expect will help find Samantha's uncle, but outlaw ninjas from the sewers are in pursuit of them. The story uses Samantha's brother Nipper as a device to add educational content to the story. The book was written by Russell Ginns, who has written over 100 books and also designed video game software. Over the course the series the characters explore locations, famous and obscure, around the globe. In the first two published books, they visit: The Louvre - France; The Eiffel Tower - France; The Florence Duomo - Italy; The Fountain"
"Ebenezer Scrooge Ebenezer Scrooge () is the protagonist of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella, ""A Christmas Carol"". At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. Dickens describes him thus: ""The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice."" His last name has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy. The tale of his redemption by the three Ghosts of Christmas (Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost"
"that he had seen used in Brazil. ""I covered it with skins"", he says, ""the hair outwards, so that it cast off the rain like a pent-house, and kept off the sun so effectually, that I could walk out in the hottest of the weather with greater advantage than I could before in the coolest."" From this description the original heavy umbrella came to be called ""Robinson"" which they retained for many years in England. Captain James Cook, in one of his voyages in the late 18th century, reported seeing some of the natives of the South Pacific Islands with"
"the most of his ever-present umbrella"". (On Guy Fawkes Night 1938 the future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, then a rebellious Conservative MP, burned an image of Chamberlain with rolled umbrella, which he topped with his own Homburg.) In fact, as photographs from the late 1930s onwards show, Eden frequently wore no hat at all. This was a habit that he shared with few other public men at the time. It was one of several aspects of modernity noted by John Betjeman in his poem on the death in 1936 of King George V, who, like Edward VII before him, had"
"name is Uther. Jack-in-Irons Jack-In-Irons is a mythical giant of Yorkshire lore who haunts lonely roads. He is covered with chains and wears the heads of his victims. He wields a large, spiked club. His name may not be Jack as other Yorkshire folklore refers to ""Jack-of-Green"" and more so the name Jack may just be a term for calling the person an unknown male, like John Doe today. Jack-in-Irons is portrayed in the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton. He is described as about 13 feet tall, with mostly human features but the face (with large tusks) of"
"the poem ""Ozymandias"" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ozy is recognised by his large top hat, which he got from his father Llewellyn when he adopted Ozy. The only other clothing he wears is a vest, which makes him the target of some of Millie's practical jokes. He is adept at letting Millie's pranks pass by without effect, but he does suffer bullying at the hands of the school jock, Jeremy, who likes to stuff Ozy into rubbish bins. Ozy also suffers from annual baldness, usually through either a freak accident or because of Millie. Although it is caused by a"
"""Andromeda polifolia"", ""Galium verum"", ""Melilotus officinalis"", ""Lotus corniculatus"" and ""Medicago lupulina"". The popular, English name for this moth comes from the pattern on its forewing. This pattern resembles the iconic representation of Ursula Southeil, known as Mother Shiptona sixteenth-century prophetess and witch. Mother Shipton is a mostly mythical character, who supposedly foretold the death of Cardinal Wolsey in 1530. Charles Hindley, a nineteenth-century bookseller, created a prophetic poem that he claimed to be by Shipton. This poem told of ""Carriages without horses"" and air planes, as well as predicting the end of the world in 1881. Callistege mi Callistege mi,"
"retractable, and extendable joints as well as sliding levers similar to those in use today. Parasols are sometimes called sunshades. An umbrella may also be called a brolly (""UK slang""), parapluie (""nineteenth century, French origin""), rainshade, gamp (""British, informal, dated""), or bumbershoot (""American slang""). The word ""parasol"" (Spanish or French) is a combination of ""para"", meaning to stop or to shield, and ""sol"", meaning sun. ""Parapluie"" (French) similarly consists of ""para"" combined with ""pluie"", which means rain (which in turn derives from ""pluvia"", the Latin word for rain). Hence, a ""parasol"" shields from sunlight while a ""parapluie"" shields from rain."
"to Charles Dickens' Mr. Pickwick and company. In chapter four of ""Cordelia Underwood"", Cordelia finds a copy of ""The Pickwick Papers"" in her uncle's trunk. Author Van Reid says that the names of the characters Ephram, Eagleton and Thump were chosen to evoke the sound of a heavy object falling downstairs. The name Tobias was consciously borrowed from the character of Uncle Toby in Laurence Sterne’s ""The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman""; Walton from Izaak Walton, author of ""The Compleat Angler"". Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump adhere to different political parties, go to separate churches, subscribe to different newspapers,"
"review and wrote ""The pictures are full of the city's moods and the child's joy in a rainy day."" Umbrella (children's book) Umbrella by Taro Yashima is a children's picture book that was named the 1959 Caldecott Honor Book. It was originally published in 1958 then later reprinted in August 1977 by Puffin Books. ""Umbrella"" is a short story where a little girl is the principal character. Her name is Momo, which means ""peach"" in Japanese, and she was born in New York. Momo carries the blue umbrella and wears the rubber boots that she was given on her third"
"Woggle-Bug The Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug is a character in the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. He first appears in the book ""The Marvelous Land of Oz"" in 1904. He goes by the name H. M. Woggle-Bug, T.E. (""Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated""). In later books the hyphen was sometimes dropped: ""Wogglebug"". In illustrations he is often depicted wearing bright colors and several pairs of glasses on his elongated proboscis. According to ""The Marvelous Land of Oz"", the Woggle-Bug was once a regular tiny woggle-bug, about the size of a pea. He lived the life of a normal insect until"
"and won several design awards and was featured on Good Morning America. The umbrella is sold in Europe as the Senz umbrella and is sold under license by Totes in the United States. Alan Kaufman's ""Nubrella"" and Greg Brebner's ""Blunt"" are other contemporary designs. The umbrella is used in weather forecasting as an icon for rain. Two variations, a plain umbrella (☂, U+2602) and an umbrella with raindrops overhead (☔, U+2614), are encoded in the Miscellaneous Symbols block of Unicode. As a canopy of state, umbrellas were generally used in southern and eastern Europe, and then passed from the imperial"
"called ""Moses"" after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's ""The Vicar of Wakefield"". This, ""being facetiously pronounced through the nose,"" became ""Boses"", which in turn was shortened to ""Boz"". The name remained coupled with ""inimitable"" until ""Boz"" eventually disappeared and Dickens became known as, simply, ""The Inimitable"". The name was originally pronounced but is now usually . The popularity of Dickens's writings was enhanced by the regular inclusion of detailed illustrations to highlight key scenes and characters. Each sketch typically featured two black-and-white illustrations, as well as an illustration for the wrapper. The images were created with wood engravings or metal"
"Penguin was ranked #51 in IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time. Born Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, the Penguin was bullied as a child for his short stature, weight, way of walking and beak-like nose. Several stories relate that he was forced, as a child, always to carry an umbrella by his overprotective mother due to his father's death from bronchial pneumonia caused by going out in the rain without an umbrella. His mother owned a bird shop, the birds of which Cobblepot lavished with attention and that served as his only friends growing up. His"
"Aquilegia Aquilegia (common names: granny's bonnet, columbine) is a genus of about 60–70 species of perennial plants that are found in meadows, woodlands, and at higher altitudes throughout the Northern Hemisphere, known for the spurred petals of their flowers. The genus name ""Aquilegia"" is derived from the Latin word for eagle (""aquila""), because of the shape of the flower petals, which are said to resemble an eagle's claw. The common name ""columbine"" comes from the Latin for ""dove"", due to the resemblance of the inverted flower to five doves clustered together. The leaves of this plant are compound and the"
"as someone the masked vigilante is capable of defeating with a solid punch. His crimes often revolve around stealing valuable bird-related items and his car and other vehicles often have an avian theme. The Penguin utilizes an assortment of umbrellas, particularly the Bulgarian umbrella. These usually contain weapons such as machine guns, sword tips, missiles, lasers, flamethrowers, and acid or poison gas spraying devices fired from the ferrule (however, the Penguin is able to weaponize his umbrellas in an almost unlimited variety of ways). Depending on the writer, some of his umbrellas can carry multiple weapons at once. He often"
"a typical film-noir-style trenchcoat-wearing detective. In the context of the series, he earned the name ""Big Bad"" after his (much larger) siblings sarcastically noted his drive to be ferocious, particularly after his father, the incarnation of the North Wind, left his mother due to a wind's nature of having to move, else the wind would never reach other lands. Due to his unique parentage, his infamous ""huff 'n puff"" is a form of wind control that has been shown to be powerful enough to smash trees down, blow out an army of flaming animated puppetmen, and Bigby once conjectured that"
"tain, eddero, he counted and got to bumfit, which was fifteen, and looked for the extra man and saw two. Tain-o-bumfit?"" In Garth Nix's novel ""Grim Tuesday"", Grim Tuesday splits his Dawn, Noon, and Dusk servants into seven parts named Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pits, Sethera and Azer. The nursery rhyme ""Hickory Dickory Dock""<nowiki>'</nowiki>s title is a form of the ""8 9 10"" of the series. Joan Aiken's children's book ""The Cuckoo Tree"" features ten ""Gentlemen"" named Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pip, Sethera, Wineberry, Wagtail, Tarrydiddle and Den. The children's album ""Fiddle Up a Tune"" by Eric Nagler features a"
"to be in Hampstead, with Foster and Briggs, respectively his purported amanuensis and man servant (or apparent bodyguard), who may be lovers. Spooner, a ""failed, down-at-heel poet"" whom Hirst has ""picked up in a Hampstead pub"" and invited home for a drink, becomes Hirst's house guest for the night; claiming to be a fellow poet, through a contest of at least-partly fantastic reminiscences, he appears to have known Hirst at university and to have shared male and female acquaintances and relationships. The four characters are named after cricket players. A man in his sixties named Hirst begins a night of"
"uncle is the guardian of a traditional Māori tapu (taboo/curse) upon the swamp. The swamp must not be touched—something sleeps there that must not be awakened. Something unnatural. In the story, twelve-year-old Gretchen has a passion for science and a talent for all things mechanical, which is why the strange old brass ""weathervane"" (referred to as the ""daisy rod"") on her uncle's farm fascinates her. But the brass daisy rod has a complex and terrifying significance, and Gretchen and her new friend Ronny discover its links with the far distant Sirius, the Dog Star. Gradually, the children discover the pieces"
"Gabriel Grub from ""The Pickwick Papers"" was also an influence when creating Scrooge. Scrooge's name came from a tombstone Dickens had seen on a visit to Edinburgh. The grave was for Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie, whose job was given as a meal man—a corn merchant; Dickens misread the inscription as ""mean man"". When Dickens was young he lived near a tradesman's premises with the sign ""Goodge and Marney"", which may have provided the name for Scrooge's former business partner. For the chained Marley, Dickens drew on his memory of a visit to the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in March 1842,"
"Sproggle calls him Big Froggle (probably as an insult) and Captain Thrice uses Mr Dank (probably as a courtesy). He has four arms, speaks with a stereotypical Deep South accent and lives in a large wooden house overlooking a swamp (the house is revealed to also be a spacecraft). He has a long tongue resembling that of a frog or chameleon (he professes himself to be 'the fastest tongue in the West'). Vain and selfish, he subsists on dank juice made from the leaves of the wombo plant and apprehends any trespassers who might steal it. In ""Swamp Fever"", he"
"effectively used to assassinate a Bulgarian journalist by poisoning him with ricin delivered through the tip of an umbrella. Bulgarian umbrella A Bulgarian umbrella is an umbrella with a hidden pneumatic mechanism which injects a small poisonous pellet containing ricin. It has a hollowed stalk into which the pellet neatly sits. Such an umbrella was allegedly used in and named for the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov on 7 September 1978 (the birthday of the Bulgarian State Council chairman Todor Zhivkov, who had often been the target of Georgi Markov's criticism) on Waterloo Bridge in London. Markov"
"Psmith Rupert Psmith (or Ronald Eustace Psmith, as he is called in the last of the four books in which he appears) is a recurring fictional character in several novels by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being one of Wodehouse's best-loved characters. The P in his surname is silent (""as in pshrimp"" in his own words) and was added by himself, in order to distinguish him from other Smiths. A member of the Drones Club, this monocle-sporting Old Etonian is something of a dandy, a fluent and witty speaker, and has a remarkable ability to pass through the most"